Quincy, Braintree still at odds over Quincy Adams station entrance

Braintree and Quincy officials remain at a stalemate over whether to reopen the pedestrian entrance on Independence Avenue to the Quincy Adams station.

Neal Simpson The Patriot Ledger @nsimpson_ledger

BRAINTREE - Thirty years after the MBTA shuttered a pedestrian entrance to the Quincy Adams station, Braintree and Quincy officials remain at a stalemate over whether to reopen it.

The entrance on Independence Avenue could provide the only non-vehicle access to the station from neighborhoods in North Braintree and South Quincy, but it was locked after the station opened in 1983 because of neighborhood complaints about commuters clogging residential streets with parked cars instead of using the station's garage. Braintree officials, including Mayor Joseph Sullivan, have long advocated for the entrance to be opened, but Quincy residents continue to oppose it.

"I know from talking to plenty of the neighbors over there on a regular basis that folks don't want the problems that will come with opening that up," said Quincy Councilor Brian Palmucci, whose ward includes the neighborhood around the entrance.

Commuters, however, continue to advocate for reopening the entrance, which connects the station garage to Independence Avenue just north of the Braintree line. An online petition started in 2012 has collected around 175 signatures from people pushing for the reopening of the entrance.

One signer wrote: "(M)y family could use that entrance when heading to our families house which is literally right next to the gate but instead have to use a bus and back track. It's absolutely stupid that its closed."

The Quincy Adams station was originally planned for a site in Braintree, but town officials lobbied to have it moved several hundred feet north into Quincy. After it opened in 1983, Quincy officials complained about the impact that the pedestrian entrance was having on nearby residential neighborhoods.

"To avoid paying for parking at the station, commuters overwhelmed the nearby neighborhood with parking on local streets, leading to an unfair burden placed on the station's neighborhood residents," said Kelly Smith, a spokeswoman or the T.

Once the entrance was closed, the Quincy Adams station became completely cut off from Independence Avenue, accessible only from Burgin Parkway on the other side of the train tracks. To get into the station, neighbors who live directly adjacent to it must now drive more than a mile, go down a highway on-ramp and pay $7 to park in the garage. Those on foot are better off taking a bus or walking to the Quincy Center station.

Despite the inconvenience, Palmucci said the "overwhelming majority" of neighborhood residents oppose reopening the entrance. And Chris Walker, a spokesman for Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, said the mayor feels the decision should be left up to them.

"The mayor's open to listening, but at the same time this issue has a very long, repetitive and difficult history," Walker said. "There's never really been any support in the neighborhood, and anything that happens would have to be done by consensus."

But there's some evidence that residents on the Braintree side of the line may feel differently. John Mullaney, a Braintree town councilor whose district includes neighborhoods just south of the entrance, said he checked with every house on Holmes Street on Wednesday night and found that 12 supported reopening it while 8 wanted it to remain closed.

"The people who supported opening it were as aggressive in their position as those who were against it," he said.

Mullaney said the families that favored reopening the entrance tended to be younger and newer to the neighborhood. He said he talked to some who had been around long enough to remember the traffic that the entrance caused when it was briefly opened in the 1980s.

Sullivan has advocated for reopening the entrance since the 1990s, when he was a state representative and chairman of the Legislature's Transportation Committee. He said he still thinks issues of parking and crime could be addressed in a way that would make the station an asset for the neighborhood it abuts.

"It must be frustrating for some people to be able to look at that entrance and not be able to access it," Sullivan said. "Instead, you've got to drive your car down the ramp and it takes you a while when you could walk a few hundred feet."

Smith, the T spokeswoman, said the agency does not plan to open the entrance unless local leaders get behind the idea and agree to step up parking enforcement.

Contact Neal Simpson at nesimpson@ledger.com or follow him on Twitter @NSimpson_Ledger.